Liberty E. Fellows

FELLOWS

Posted By: Allamakee co. Coordinator (email)
Date: 3/2/2004 at 10:42:46

Liberty E. Fellows was a native of Vermont, where he was born in 1834. He came to Allamakee County in 1857, settling at or near Lansing. He engaged in farming, taught school, studied law, was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in 1862. He subsequently became distinguished as a public man, one of the ablest and best known lawyers of his part of the State, and for many years one of its ablest judges. Judge Granger thus spoke of him:

Liberty E. Fellows, of Lansing, was one of the very able lawyers of northeastern Iowa, a successful practitioner and for some fifteen years or more a District Judge of rare ability. He died during the summer of 1912.

In the early part of his political career he was a Democrat, and was one of the very few of that party elected to the House of the Eleventh General Assembly in 1865. At the close of his term in the House he was elected on the same political ticket, in 1867, to the Senate and served in the Twelfth and Thirteenth General Assemblies. He was not only a leader of the "Corporal's Guard" of his party, but a highly active and influential member in both bodies. For twelve years he was on the Board of Trustees of the Hospital for the Insane at Mt. Pleasant, and for a number of years a Regent of the State University. In January, 1889, he was appointed by the Governor, Judge of the District Court to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignaton of Judge Granger, upon the election of the latter at Judge of the Supreme Court. At the subsequent election Judge Fellows was elected by the people and was continued in his judicial office by three or four successive re-elections.

Our personal acquaintance began in 1866, while we were fellow members of the Eleventh General Assembly, and was continued by our occasional meetings at the semi-annual sessions of the Supreme Court at Dubuque. He was a gentleman and a scholar and fully deserved the high measure of success he attained.

- source: Recollections and Sketches of Notable Lawyers and Public Men of Early Iowa; Chapter XXXI - Allamakee county; by Edward H. Stiles; 1916
- transcribed by S. Ferrall